Strawberry Fields Triathlon: The Run

Transition #2

The run was pretty uneventful. It was a 2-loop course that was very flat, but there were a lot of turns and no mile markers so it was a little difficult to tell what my pace was until I finished the first loop and turned around for loop #2.

My overall time for the run was 50:06 for a 10k. Exactly 1 minute slower than my previous Olympic distance PR.

At the end of the day, my total time was 2:39:29. That was my fastest overall Olympic distance by 5:47.

My swim was 10:41 slower
T1 was 0:40 slower
Bike was 18:17 faster
T2 was 0:08 slower
Run was 1:00 slower

So the bike really carried the day. I've got my sights set on a new goal of sub 2:30 for an Olympic distance. All I really need to do is get my swim down to 30 minutes for a 1500 and keep my Bike and Run the same. Under the right conditions, I'm sure I can do it - I've done a 30 minute 1500 before.

On the 10k run

Strawberry Fields Triathlon: The Bike

This triathlon was my first real race on the new Felt B2 Pro bike. A combination of the training I've been doing to prepare for the double century, a super flat course, and the new bike allowed me to get an Olympic bike PR of 1:03:29. That's over 18 minutes faster than my previous Olympic bike PR!

It's the bike portion of this race that actually gave me the overall PR. EVERY other section of the race was slower for me, including the two transitions - but that 18 minute PR on the bike allowed me to get an overall PR for the race.

Oh, and I almost forgot. I launched my first bottle during this race. It was within just a couple miles of exiting the transition area. I had my Profile Aero drink bottle on the front, and one extra bottle of water on the back. I hit a dip in the road, and heard a 'clunk" behind me. I looked back and saw my full water bottle sitting in the gutter. I'm not sure if I had the bottle seated all the way down in the cage or what, but obviously this is something I'll have to test out over the next year as I prepare for IMAZ.

Strawberry Fields Triathlon: The Swim

I've always been a middle of the pack swimmer and this event was no exception. I came in 151st place on the swim, which was right smack in the middle of the pack (53%). Unfortunately my time was much worse than I expected. I went into the event predicting a swim time somewhere around 30 minutes, but my actual time was 40:77. That's over 10 minutes worse than my swim time at my previous Olympic distance event.

It's always hard for me to analyze why certain swims are better or worse than others. On the bike or run, it's usually easy to tell why a particular course is fast or slow (hills, wind, heat, etc) but some of the likely factors for my slow swim include:

• Less swim training time since I've been focusing on the bike this year.
• Course distance could have been wrong. The race director had the swim course reversed on the morning of the race because ocean currents changed direction, so maybe the markers were not placed exactly right when they moved them. (How do they measure that in the water anyway?)
• Ocean currents could have both slowed my forward progress and also moved me off course enough to make me swim a bit farther than intended. Since there's no good reference point out in the ocean, it's always hard for me to tell how bad the currents are. It's not like I can see the bottom of the pool and tell how fast (or slow) I'm moving.

The good news is I was able to get a new PR in spite of the fact that my swim time was 10 minutes slower than I expected it to be. That means I could realistically set a time goal of 2:30 for an Olympic distance race since I know I can finish a 1500m swim in under 30 under the right conditions.

Strawberry Fields Triathlon: Overview

On July 19, 2009 I raced in the Strawberry Fields Olympic Distance Triathlon.

I signed up for it several months ago when I found out my friend Ray was going to be flying in from Ecuador - visiting family & friends in California. He's a triathlete, and we keep in touch via email and social networking. It's been 6 years since the last time he was in LA, so when he said he was coming to town and he wanted to do a triathlon while he was here - we signed up.

This was the first time I've competed in this particular triathlon and I'd say the organizers put on a great event. The race consisted of a 1500m ocean swim, a 40k bike, and a 10k run. It's definitley a flat and fast course. I got a new PR of 2:39:29 in an Olympic distance tri.

My split times for the event were:

Swim: 40:77
T1: 2:59
Bike: 1:03:29
T2: 1:38
Run: 50:06

A pain in the neck

In addition to a new PR at the Strawberry Fields Olympic Triathlon, I also got a pretty good wetsuit hickey (picture below). I was careless the day before the Triathlon and got a slight sunburn on my neck. I assume starting the day with a sunburn was enough to let that wetsuit really dig in and rub my neck raw during the swim.

I will post my report sometime this week. I'm waiting for the event photos to be posted so I can add them to the report.